Javon Bullard is the dagger
“I’ll be the bad guy. Make me the villain.” The Green Bay Packers need a killer instinct. We travel south to meet the man who can change everything. (He can’t wait for his next shot at the Bears.)
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — The search for what these Green Bay Packers have always been missing begins as a conquest against Mother Nature. Blinding fog makes a 65-mile drive to the airport feel more like staring into a 90s Magic Eye poster. Fly south to Atlanta, pick up a rental car, escape bumper-to-bumper traffic in the city and a torrential downpour into the country prompts several cars to veer off the nearest exit. Windshield wipers are helpless.
Finally, you arrive. Everything this town of 17,000 residents needs is on North Columbia Street, including some of the finest southern cooking in all of Georgia. Legends Seafood & Grill is the cultural heartbeat of Milledgeville. Walk through the front door and a glossy homage to a hometown hero greets all patrons: an autographed No. 22 Georgia Bulldogs jersey with two pictures from a national title triumph.
This is Javon Bullard Country.
When the 23-year-old himself arrives, all eyes dart his direction. A hostess leads us to the vacant dining area in the back. It’s quiet, dimly lit, perfect for deep introspection. No use making idle small talk. One minute into conversation, I explain what inspired this trip: his raw honesty after the Packers’ heinous postseason collapse in Chicago. It was refreshing. Through 15 years of crushing playoff defeats, nobody’s been so blunt.
Time has passed. Most athletes seated in this chair would politely offer a word salad before, then, changing the subject. He can’t because he’s not most athletes. Bullard refuses to ignore the subject that’s taken up permanent residency in the prefrontal cortex of his brain since the night of Jan. 10, 2026.
Our waitress hasn’t even returned to ask what we’d like to drink yet.
“Damn, I hate Chicago!” Bullard says. “It’s like real hate. I can’t stand Chicago. I don’t know what the hell it is. I don’t like the team. I don’t like their coach. I don’t like shit about Chicago. Except for their food. I do love their food. But other than that, man? Damn Chicago.”
Once the Bears’ 31-27 comeback was complete, Ben Johnson tossed a grenade onto this rivalry. Inside the winner’s locker room, the Bears head coach shouted: “Fuck the Packers! Fuck them!” Honestly? Bullard loved this fire. When it’s time to get back to work, he might even say something to Matt LaFleur — it’s time for his own coach to pop off.
“Don’t let him try to shit on you like that,” Bullard says. “I don’t like that.”
No, every game is not the same. He wants vengeance. This is not unhinged rage and he hopes the Bears hear everything he has to say.
He’s plotting, not whining.
Smiling, not seething.
“We’re going to see them boys — multiple times,” Bullard says. “They’re going to have to come with it.”
Javon Bullard is only getting started.
This night, he’s wearing a plain white tee and his dreadlocks spill from a gray beanie. Bullard’s body is a tapestry of tattoos. On his right bicep, you’ll see “FEAR GOD.” On his left forearm, a Bible verse. Philippians 4:6 advises not to be anxious, not to worry, rather to bring your questions to God. Mom’s name is tatted. So is the NFL shield. But what shines most is the bling. The grillz. The necklace. The bracelet. All diamond-encrusted jewelry, worth more than this visitor’s life, projects an authentic swagger that’s actually quite old school.
Everything Bullard is feeling right now can be directly traced to the sport’s meteoric rise in the 60s. Back when this rhetoric was the norm.
Vince Lombardi and George Halas cultivated genuine hatred in the opposition. Ray Nitschke knocked Mike Ditka unconscious on the field and picked fights with the Bears tight end outside of a Milwaukee restaurant off it. If those greats were seated at this table, they’d buy Bullard a beer and thank him for preserving everything that makes football unlike any other occupation. The sport’s gladiator mentality remains alive in Packers-Bears, two teams that’ve played 213 times. When Bullard hears these names, he beams. “You just feel it,” he says. “You feel the hate.” Bullard jokes that he could post a picture of a breathtaking sunset and his feed will be bombarded with vulgarities and #BearDown hashtags.
Thus, all participants in such emotionally charged combat face a binary choice. There is no gray area.
Cower in the fetal position or embr…
“Embrace it,” Bullard cuts in.
The day after this loss, Bullard insisted Chicago didn’t do anything special. Green Bay gave this game away. He stands by every word.
“I’d say that shit every day if I had to,” he says. “Us as players, we didn’t execute. Coaches didn’t call shit as good as they should have. It’s all a collective. They need us, we need them. The reality is, we lost. But we were beating the shit out of them. Not to take shit away from them because they made some hell of a plays, too. But we were doing unorthodox things that we really don’t do.
“We’re a team that doesn’t necessarily know how to play with a lead.”
He explains.
“From the jump, we’re on your ass right now. You already know what time it is. It’s 21-3 at half. But this is a sport of momentum. That shit is real. We’re on the road in a volatile, hostile environment. They had all the momentum. They had all the swag on their side. They proved they can stop us and shit shifted. Now, we’ve got to find a mojo.”
The Packers never did find their mojo. Bullard still remembers that long walk back toward the visitor’s locker room.
“A bad feeling,” he says, “especially when you know you’re the better team. Hell, they know. I’m going to keep it a bean. They know.”
When the Packers were crushing the Bears, Bullard saw the dread in their eyes.
“We’re on y’all ass and you’re acting like you motherfuckers don’t even want to play no more. But we need that instinct to kill motherfuckers’ hope. Like, ‘No. Not today. Not tomorrow. Y’all through. We finna beat y’all ass.’ I don’t think we’ve got that as a team yet. But we’ve got another year to prove it.”
This game was not decided by pyrotechnic play design or bold analytics.
January results will not change until this franchise’s psyche does. This is a Packers team that lost three times without punting once. In five of their nine losses, they led by 9+ points. They choked away a 10-0 lead to the Cleveland Browns, botched an onside recovery the other time they visited Chicago, were humiliated for 307 yards on the ground by Baltimore and we’ll get to all that standing around in Denver when Jordan Love was shoved in the head. The wild-card meltdown should’ve come as no surprise. Playoff collapses have become as embedded into Wisconsin culture as Spotted Cows, bratwursts smothered in sauerkraut and scraping your windshield in March.
Javon Bullard — call him “Bull” — is here to change all of that.
Right here in Milledgeville, he dodged bullets, idolized a honey badger and learned how to win this psychological warfare on a football field.
His story is instructive for all 32 teams. Because this is precisely when all clubs try to improve via free agency, trades, the draft. Player acquisition. Truth is, the chasm between a playoff team and a champion isn’t anything digestible on All-22 footage. It’s exactly what Bullard describes: a killer instinct. Sensing fear in your adversary and driving that dagger deeper. Being the hunter, never the hunted. Packers president Ed Policy could have hit reset this offseason. Some teams, like the Buffalo Bills, hire a new head coach to get over the hump. In Green Bay, Matt LaFleur is back for an eighth season.
This character trait must bloom from within.
The 5-foot-10, 198-pounder seated here is fully prepared to do whatever it takes.
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‘The villain’
As a boy, in high school, he was a threat to the health of any opponent within a 15-yard radius. Trickeration stood no chance. One night, Westlake High School called a fake punt and Javon Bullard sniffed it out. The punter rolls right, lobs a pass up the right sideline, Bullard takes off in all-out sprint, and… no. Words cannot do this destruction justice. His coach at Baldwin High School, Jesse Hicks, stops talking mid-sentence and texts the clip. “He decapitates this kid,” Hicks says.
Officials often begged Hicks to calm Bullard down. His hits were legal, but too piercing. Too violent. He did this in practice. He did this in games.
Hospitalization was not required to Hicks’ knowledge. This receiver did not return to the game.
“When you see it, you’ll say, ‘Wait a minute, is that kid alive?’” Hicks adds. “It looks like he literally slices this guy in half.”
As a man, in the pros, he make a mockery of basic physics. Immediately. Game No. 1, in São Paulo, Brazil, wide receiver A.J. Brown stalked upfield with plans to manhandle Bullard at the second level. Understandable. The Philadelphia Eagles receiver is 30+ pounds heavier. His muscles have muscles. He’s got an eight-pack. Seven percent body fat. And… yeah. So much for delivering a Welcome to the NFL moment. Bullard gained leverage to dump truck Brown. He stared down at his body and shook his head.
Linebacker Isaiah McDuffie says teammates audibly hear such violence.
“It sounds,” McDuffie says, “like someone just got hit by a train.”
In-between — at the University of Georgia — a boy became a man.
This is the best place to start. “Bull” has forever approached this sport with the emotional sensitivity of an actual Spanish Fighting Bull, so those first few practices were bound to be contentious. He had no clue the quarterback was completely off-limits. As a freshman, Bullard beelined toward J.T. Daniels and describes his sack as more aggressive swipe than all-out takedown. Offensive linemen went ballistic. Defensive players had his back. Coaches? All coaches preach the virtues of playing fast, but only a select few are willing to take the good with the bad. That’s Kirby Smart. He didn’t exile Bullard 73.5 miles back to Milledgeville, no, Georgia’s head coach knows this instinct is primitive. He’s an alpha who’ll butt heads with alphas, too. At one point this night — in the most affectionate tone possible — Bullard jokes, “I hated his guts!” The more they butted heads, the closer they became.
The best defensive players are destined to cross a line.
“I don’t want to live a life of regret,” Bullard says. “Like, ‘Damn, I should’ve done that.’ Hell nah. Go 110 percent in whatever the hell you’re doing.”
He thinks back to life inside Sanford Stadium and smacks his hands together. When those lights turned on, something inside of him came alive. “I do whatever the hell I have to do,” he says, “when I need to do it.” He wasn’t vocal for the sake of being vocal. Speeches were rare. But whenever Bullard started talking, the locker room went silent. If a message needed to be delivered, it was impossible to hold his tongue.
“I’ll be the bad guy,” he says. “Fuck it. Make me the villain.”
That’s a word we hear often in this sport. He’s not the first testosterone-fueled DB torpedoing receivers into tomorrow. I ask what exactly goes into being a villain and he cites that line-crossing.
He points to the seminal moment of his football life: the “Marvin Harrison thing.”
How Bullard approached football was officially put on trial in front of 22.1 million viewers.
In the 2022 College Football Playoff semifinals, Georgia’s season was on life support. Forty-three seconds remained in the third quarter and Ohio State led, 35-24, with the ball at the Bulldogs’ 7-yard line. It was third and goal. Facing an all-out blitz, quarterback C.J. Stroud faded right and lobbed a high-arching prayer to Harrison in the back of the end zone. Bull (again) saw red. Bull (again) blasted through the wide receiver. This vicious crashing sound is accompanied by an echo, a chilling “Ooooo!” by all eyewitnesses as if witnessing a Talladega crash. One teammate rushes over to an immobile Harrison. Flags fly. Bullard — initially — is penalized for targeting, which means an automatic ejection.
Upon review, however, officials ruled that Bullard struck Harrison legally.
Zoom in, slow the replay to a crawl, and the legislation made perfect sense. Bullard always drilled receivers with so much force that refs instinctively throw laundry — like that Westlake “decapitation.” This ability to locate and strike an ever-shrinking bull’s eye in real time blows Hicks’ mind. He didn’t teach Bullard this. Nobody did.
This CFP call proved seismic. Bullard stayed in the game, Harrison was finished, the Buckeyes settled for a field goal and, of course, the Bulldogs rallied to win, 42-41. They steamrolled TCU, 62-7, in the national title. Simultaneously, the kid from Milledgeville went viral. Buckeyes coach Ryan Day ripped him. To all of Columbus, Bullard became Public Enemy No. 1. Even the Big Ten’s coordinator of officials labeled the hit “dangerous.” Scars remain.
“I’m the bad guy because of a play,” says Bullard. “If I didn’t do that? We’d lose. The outcome might not have been the same. Now, I’m a dirty player. What the fuck y’all want?”
He sounds frustrated… briefly. Only briefly. Bullard decided to weaponize this backlash and go full Joker mode.
“Perspective over perception,” he says. “Y’all perceive me to be this, but OK. I view your perception. Now, it’s my perspective. I’m going to take what you say and make it true. I’ll be the villain. That’s cool. I’ll be the bad guy. What’s next?”
Football is a microcosm of life. He’ll go back to school to finish his degree in consumer economics, but this lesson will forever prove more valuable than a piece of paper. Anyone in any profession can play it safe and kiss all appropriate corporate asses. Avoid controversy. Don’t do anything that threatens your paycheck from depositing every two weeks. That’s one impulse. Bullard represents the other. Bullard knows such a banal existence also has consequences — it zaps innovation.
Change? Apologize?
No. Hell no.
Right then, he vowed to keep testing boundaries. If it makes others uncomfortable, so be it.
Rebels in this 99th percentile typically don’t have this epiphany until they’ve been shamed across NFL headlines. In a chat with Go Long last season, firebrand Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair relived the time in ‘24 the NFL’s own VP of Football Operations, ex-lineman Jon Runyan, all but declared him the shield’s official Darth Vader in a letter disseminated to mass media. “He wrote that letter,” Al-Shaair told us, “as if I personally slapped him in the face.” The linebacker spiraled into a cycle of paranoia, anxiety, depression, the darkest thoughts we can imagine. It wasn’t until midway through the 2025 season that Al-Shaair finally let go and quit stressing over where that dirty/clean line exists within the league’s 241-page rulebook. He distilled this play-to-play calculation down to simple logic. (“You’re trying to embarrass me. I’m trying to embarrass you.”)
Bullard nods. He experienced the same awakening.
Think too much and Harrison catches that touchdown.
Think too much and Georgia doesn’t win it all.
“Now, you’re timid,” he says. “Now, you’re just thinking, ‘Uhh, I don’t want to get fined! I don’t want to get flagged!’ No, bro. Do that shit. Deal with the consequences. Go to the next play.”
This is the mindset of a dagger. A mindset the Green Bay Packers have lacked for too long. Bullard was 12 years old when this team choked away the 2014 NFC Championship in Seattle, juuuuust old enough to see the eerie parallels to this past January. Ex-Packers are still traumatized by that evening at CenturyLink Field. Ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent of viewers assumed the game was over when Morgan Burnett intercepted quarterback Russell Wilson. Future Hall of Famer Julius Peppers gave Burnett the “no mas” signal to slide. The safety obliged. Green Bay took over with a 19-7 lead and only 5 minutes remaining.
Looking back, this slide was akin to assuming Michael Myers will bleed out in a dark alley.
A wide angle of the replay revealed that if Burnett runs past a cluster of linemen (likely), he only needed to beat Wilson for a TD.
Bullard looks disgusted.
“What are you sliding for? On defense?” Bullard says. “I’ll tell you this: I’m never sliding. Unless we already got the game and the clock hits zero. Other than that? I’m never sliding. Ever. You can’t play passive, man.”
Catastrophe ensued. If head coach Mike McCarthy doesn’t call plays with the aggressiveness of your great Aunt Gertrude at the wheel or if Brandon Bostick lets Jordy Nelson recover an onside kick or if Ha Ha Clinton-Dix doesn’t grossly mistime a 2-point prayer, Burnett’s interception is remembered differently. The NFL is cruel. Playoff games are won on the margins.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a gentler soul in that Packers locker room than Burnett. We spent many days at his locker debating NBA topics. He was a positive influence. A leader.
Thing is, this club needed players who are not particularly nice. To win those margins, a nasty edge is required. The late-great Ted Thompson did many things right as Packers GM. His teams went 125-82-1 in 13 seasons with nine playoff appearances. The No. 1 reason those Packers didn’t win more than one ring, though, was his propensity to steer clear of this breed of defensive player. The bad guy. After playing it safe for a while, like his mentor, Brian Gutekunst is now taking swings. He correctly saw that hit on Harrison as a missing ingredient.
Dig deeper into Bullard’s past and it’s clear why he plays with this edge.
Milledgeville Man
All of our grandmothers would approve of these portions. Seafood piles onto plates here at Legends. Our waitress recommends the flounder and I see why. Two slabs of fish hang off my plate by roughly 1 ½ inches each side. Hush puppies and French fries occupy all vacant space. Everything’s devoured.
Bullard orders fried calamari but hardly touches his food because the ring-to-tentacle ratio is off. Roughly 80:20 and, eh, these tentacles are too lifelike. Plus, he’s got a meal waiting for him. After hanging out here, Bullard will head to the lake to stay at an Airbnb with friends — his girlfriend is one hell of a cook. The two have been together since 10th grade. She’s the one. “World full of chaos,” he says. “Trying to do shit the right way.”
On the lake, the crew will watch a comedy. Bullard views gut-splitting merriment as good for the soul. He watched “White Chicks” the previous night, considers “Dumb and Dumber” a classic and cannot wait for “Scary Movie 6” to drop June 12. This spoof on horror particularly aligns with his worldview that everyone needs to quit being so soft, so sensitive. “You can’t say anything,” he says. “Everybody gets offended.” Inevitably, the friends will play spades. Or Tonk. Or Knock. Or a party game such as “Heads Up!” and “Taboo.” These sessions begin with plenty of laughs and giggles. “But shit,” Bullard adds, “all that laughing goes out the window when you start losing.” Partners snipe at each other for not pulling their weight.
It gets heated. Trash talk ratchets up. Close friends become even closer.
All while one of Bullard’s best friends in attendance knows how close he was to never living to see a night like this.
“A homeboy,” Bullard says, “who was literally grazed by a bullet.”
One night in Milledgeville, a shootout broke out. Everyone ran.
The bullet scraped his rib cage. One or two more inches and he’s dead.
Bullard shares this all with zero dramatics. He might as well be opining on the weather because — to him? — such a dalliance with death is not outrageous. Milledgeville, he explains, presents the “reality of life” firsthand. Beer? Drugs? Guns? Teens can get their hands on anything in a town this small. Ask if friends of his have been shot and killed and Bullard looks as if I’ve got a foot growing out of my skull. Of course he knows people locked up in prison. Of course he has friends six feet under.
“You go to a party? Shit. You hope it don’t get shot up. Ask anybody in there,” says Bullard, nodding toward the dining area. “They’ll probably say the same thing.
“I’m no stranger to danger.”
Play by play, he brings the scene to life. A house party. A block party. Everything starts perfectly fine for all in attendance. But as music booms, Bullard learned how to sharpen his periphery vision. First, he’d see someone in a baggy shirt and sagging pants arrive — a telltale sign that this person was concealing a firearm. This suspicious person starts whispering into the ear of someone, and that’s your cue.
Run.
Fast.
Never in a straight line, either.
“You bob and weave,” he says. “Bob and weave, man!”
The pop-pop-pop sound of gunfire, the sight of blood splattering, losing a friend. Bullard grew numb to it all. Shootouts broke out so frequently that he’d get more aggravated than scared. Pissed off that somebody had to ruin a good time. The cause was always absurd. Petty disputes over money and women were settled with guns, not fists. After one deadly weekend in 2021, one police captain cited “a lack of respect for human life.” Bullard sees another factor at play.
“It’s easy access,” Bullard says. “That’s the motto of this generation. Everything. We want everything easy. How quickly can I do something? How quickly can I get it done? How easy can it be?”
Yet, Bullard returns home as much as possible. Many NFL’ers leave the past in the past — he won’t, he can’t. He’s certain seeing this thin line between life and death hardened him.
All childhood friends ventured down one of three distinct paths.
“Homies that become great, successful people. Businessmen. Homies that are in cell block B right now. Homies that are no longer with us. … What are you going to do?”
When you’re relaxing one moment and sprinting for your life the next, fear isn’t an option. Existential questions must be faced head-on. Bullard accepted his reality — “life is short” — and applied all urgency, all fearlessness to his greatest passion: football. From age 5, Bullard always played with older kids. That’s life as a little brother. On a deeper level, his passion was fueled by an old-fashioned respect for his elders in the sport.
He understands football was played long before he was born.
“So I feel like I’m paying my due to the game,” Bullard says. “If you go out there and you’re timid and you’re shy and you don’t really feel like playing and shit? Then, what are you out here doing it for? That’s how you end up getting hurt. That’s how you end up getting somebody else hurt. You’re wasting your time. Go ahead and do something.”
When he turned on the TV, one player attacked every snap as if tomorrow wasn’t promised. His favorite player growing up is still his favorite player today.
Tyrann Mathieu. The “Honey Badger.” Nearly a decade ago, the LSU legend-turned pariah-turned NFL All Pro told me in his living room that a generation of kids was looking up to him. At the time, I chalked the comment up as harmless hyperbole. Now, those kids are in their 20s and you’ll have a hard time finding an NFL defensive back who wasn’t influenced by Mathieu.
Bullard never wanted to attend Georgia — “hell no!” — because LSU was his dream school. He wanted to wear No. 7, rock arm bands and dye his hair blonde when Mathieu finished fifth in the Heisman Trophy voting. The nickname was perfect. Mathieu was uniquely rabid in his approach to the sport, creating 15 turnovers his two collegiate seasons.
“A dog,” Bullard says. “There’s only a handful of people who make football cool. Football is football, but it ain’t always been cool. He really epitomized the DB position — making it fun, making it swaggy. Especially for my generation.”
Like Mathieu, there was nothing physically imposing about Bullard. Like Mathieu, he made up for it with a ravenous play style. He weighed all of 165 pounds in high school, yet whenever Bullard struck opponents? Wideouts to pulling guards? They always went backward. Hicks called him a “bottle rocket” his freshman year. In time, this analogy proved too weak. “He could run,” Hicks says, “and knock the living hell out of you.” Every time Bullard returned to the sideline, they dissected the X’s and O’s. Hicks viewed him as an extra coach on staff.
From afar, the high school coach was not surprised to see Bullard speak up after the Bears loss. In 9th grade, he’d speak up to 12th-graders.
Hicks saw that look in the kid’s face before. He was pissed.
“It’s a controlled nastiness,” Hicks says. “It never came out as cussing anybody out. It was the way he led.”
Bull misses the innocence of those high school days. Little things like going to Hibbett Sports with his buddies on gameday to buy all sorts of apparel and decorate his cleats. There was no dress code telling him which socks to wear. He tells current athletes at Baldwin High School to cherish every second. Granted, individualism had its limits. Bullard never was allowed to bleach his hair like the Honey Badger. Mom vetoed this request in approximately 2.3 seconds because Bullard assures Mom is also a “dog.” Shonda Bullard, a nurse practitioner, accomplishes anything she wants in life. Most recently, she earned her master’s degree. Growing up, the two loved watching sports debates on TV. So much that Bullard considered pursuing a journalism degree.
Bull knows Mom is the No. 1 reason he’s so bold, so unapologetically himself.
Dad was in the military and Mom believed in tough love. Neither coddled their son. Shonda instructed Hicks to be strict himself.
“Some parents entitle their children these days,” Hicks says. “She never did that. She held his butt responsible. … Mom? Oh my goodness. She is the nucleus. She’s the glue.”
In Athens, reality continued to test son’s resolve.
In September 2021, he was arrested for a DUI charge and six other misdemeanors. He took a mug shot in the orange jump suit, was released on a $4,200 bond, faced public embarrassment and was promptly suspended. He needed this wake-up call. “It changed his mindset,” Hicks recalls. “It enhances your gift. The rearview is smaller than the windshield.” A few months later, his life changed with that hit on Harrison. He won a second national title. And then, tragedy. One of his best friends, Chandler LeCroy, died. The 24-year-old recruiting analyst and Bulldogs player Devin Willock were both killed in a car crash hours following a victory parade. According to police, LeCroy was racing Georgia star Jalen Carter through the streets of Athens when she lost control of the vehicle and crashed around 2:45 a.m. She was traveling 104 mph. A toxicology report indicated her BAC was .197.
To this day, the pinned post on Bullard’s X account is a photograph with LeCroy.
He lists off the nicknames of other close friends who’ve died over the years.
“The reality of this beautiful thing called life,” he says. “So you take those licks and you keep going.”
Life inside this restaurant offers a hopeful contrast to those shootouts. Stick around long enough and we’ll see Shonda take the mic at Legends. Friday is Karaoke Night. (Son does not sing, no.) On Saturdays, a DJ takes over and everyone’s on the dance floor. On Sundays, TVs flip over to the Packers game and all eyes fixate on No. 20.
He harbors nothing but love for his city. It’s getting much safer. The next day, he’ll host a family fun day at the local park. Everyone’s invited.
Bullard treasures what he calls “clean, fun, safe, old-fashioned fun.”
“That fun,” he adds, “that my grandmother used to have. They didn’t have to worry about nobody losing their life. That’s what makes this place special to me. That’s why I always come home. It keeps me levelheaded. It keeps me centered. Shit, I come home because I feel regular. I still feel like that little boy playing football. Still doing the same shit I was doing back then. Just got a little bit more money.”
Something like that.
A few seconds later, Bullard removes a Rose Gold grill from his mouth to eat a calamari ring.
Times have changed.
‘Let me be me’
He’s allergic to bullshit. If he told the press how he really felt through a maddening rookie season, there would be trouble. Best he could, Javon Bullard bit his tongue.
To his core, he believed the Green Bay Packers were trying to turn him into something he is not.
All tribal instincts sharpened from Milledgeville to Athens were suppressed. He felt dumbed down to a robotic knockoff version of himself. Put your right foot here. Put your left foot there. Before the snap, his mind was cluttered with minutiae. Further, the entire defense wasn’t on the same page most of this ’24 season. (“At all.”) Bullard didn’t say anything publicly or privately. “I’m a rookie,” Bullard admits, “so nobody gives a fuck what you think.” Still, he hated the player he was becoming.
One more turning point was required. He remembered all that Buckeye backlash — staying true to himself amid hysteria — and refused to get bogged down by bullet points. In Year 2, Bullard decided to trust everything he saw on film.
What changed? Over dinner, he leans forward to lock in eye contact.
“I honestly think it was me not giving a fuck,” Bullard says. “When I’m going out here, I’m going to trust what I see, trust my study. I’m going to do shit how ‘Bull’ sees it.”
It paid off. Bullard totaled 83 tackles (49 solo), three pass breakups and one fumble recovery last season. Most telling, per PFF, he allowed 0.63 yards per coverage as a nickel. Only one player in the entire league was better: All-Pro Kyle Hamilton. The slot position afforded more creativity. He started to accurately predict just about everything. And if he was wrong? If an offense ran something a specific way 59 times before doing it differently the 60th time? He could live with those results. This relentless search for the “Why” behind how offenses attacked Green Bay powered his game — a word he repeats four times in one response.
OK, Green Bay, Wisconsin was not exactly this Georgia boy’s preferred destination on draft weekend. Thinking back, it was minus-17 degrees when he left town for this offseason. Even Brett Favre — 39-6 in sub-40 temps from ’91 to ‘04 — did not enjoy the cold. Nor is this market a bastion of diversity. Bull soon realized this was a match made in football heaven. He dubs the NFL’s smallest market the “perfect place” for who genuinely loves football. Distractions are damn near nonexistent.
So, here’s the play by play of his life today. Bullard lives across the street from Lambeau Field in the city’s “Titletown District.” In the living room of his quaint apartment, Bullard lounges between his girlfriend’s legs. They relax. Catch up. And right when she starts TikTok’ing or hits play on “Bad Girls Club,” Bullard turns on his tablet to watch film and take notes. Both get their fix.
A scene the man who resurrected this franchise saw in a crystal ball 30+ years prior.
Ron Wolf’s task was gargantuan when he was hired as this team’s general manager. These Packers made the playoffs all of two times between 1968 and 1992. His corner of the country was viewed more as a gulag by NFL vets. As free agency loomed — granting more player freedom — the organization ran the risk of becoming obsolete. Wolf was undeterred because Wolf identified one intrinsic advantage. Here, it’s all about football. “Everything,” he once told Go Long, is “geared toward the player.” That was the inherent greatness of the franchise, back to Lombardi and Lambeau.
Said Wolf: “It’s not about going to some owner’s wife’s tea party. This affair or that affair. It’s about playing football and being a professional football player.”
Week-in, week-out, Bullard closely studies his adversary in the slot.
All tendencies, all mannerisms. Personal film work is what led to Bullard stuffing a pair of screen passes against Washington. He points to another play later in the season. Against the New York Giants — 1:22 to go, clinging to 27-20 lead — Bullard knew exactly what was coming when Wan’Dale Robinson sped in motion. Robinson was going vertical. No. 20 forced No. 17 into the sideline to force an end-zone incompletion. Two snaps later, teammate Evan Williams picked off a pass to win.
His physicality has a galvanizing effect.
“Guys feed off of his play style,” McDuffie says. “When you see your nickel back smacking people, you’re like, ‘OK. I need to lay the wood, too.’”
The Packers smashed Minnesota (23-6), outlasted the Lions in a Turkey Day thriller (31-24), and triumphed over Chicago at Lambeau Field. Bullard was excellent. He supplied one of the team’s six hits on Caleb Williams in a 28-21 win.
It was Dec. 7. The team’s record was 9-3-1.
Super Bowl dreams were real.
They never won again.
Once the cadaver was transported north for a full autopsy, this team’s cause of death had nothing to do with what transpired at Soldier Field in the wild card. The lethal injection for these 2025 Packers was administered one month prior, precisely 5,280 feet above sea level. Against the Denver Broncos, sure, they lost all-galaxy pass rusher Micah Parsons to a torn ACL. But that afternoon they lost something even more valuable.
Their pride.
After the play, on the sideline, Broncos safety Talanoa Hufanga shoved quarterback Jordan Love’s head. It was blatant. It was objectively dirty. And all the Packers did was stand around and point, as if tattle-telling on the playground. A pitiful display. You only get one opportunity to make a statement. An appropriate retaliation is worth 15 yards. Hell, 150 yards. Because if you do nothing — like Matt LaFleur’s Packers — you’ll get bullied again. And again. And again. And before you know it, a rival coach is punking you in front of the world.
The more apt analogy is what we see in hockey. This was an NHL team refusing to stand up to a goon who bum-rushed their goalie.
Former enforcer T.J. Lang was never shy. He took out anybody who took a cheap shot on a teammate.
The longtime guard articulated the effect beautifully on the podcast.
“There’s no negotiation. Because I see a lot of the comments like, ‘Oh, LaFleur coaches them this way.’ … I don’t give a damn. Honestly, I swear to God, I’d rather go into the locker room with my coaches screaming at me in a team meeting room and then walk in the locker room and have 50-fucking-5 guys fist bump me and be like, ‘We got your back,’ then to sit there and not do anything? And the coaches say, “Hey, great job. Way to restrain yourself after watching your quarterback get cheap-shotted.” And then you’re wondering what the guys in the locker room are thinking about you. I’d rather have it the first way every day. I’d rather have it that way. “You can fool your coaches. You ain’t going to fool your teammates.
“Your teammates are going to know exactly who the fuck you are.”
Bullard wasn’t anywhere near the play. Asked about this cheap shot, he draws a blank. Which is telling. The play should’ve been addressed to the entire team Monday AM.
Nobody should’ve been stunned by the playoff collapse that soon followed.
Bullard is only one player. His personal code should be adopted by all.
“Play within the rules of the game,” Bullard says. “But play with every fucking bone in your body. Don’t settle for nothing.
“Attack it.”
Many coaches (and players) in the NFL believe this works like a power switch in an electrical room deep in the bowels of a stadium. Gameday arrives and — voila! — you turn it on. Farcical delusion. The best coaches understand you must “attack” in practice. This is a lifestyle. The last two champs told the world in blunt language what led them to the big stage. Linebacker Zack Baun detailed the “Wrath of Vic.” Philadelphia’s defensive coordinator, Vic Fangio, was demanding. Wide receiver Cooper Kupp, mid-celebration, brought up OTAs. Mike Macdonald was extremely tough on guys in Seattle. Palpable energy that drew everyone closer. “I knew we had something special,” Kupp said.
Bullard understands he’s not in the SEC anymore, but he’s got friends on other teams — like fellow Bulldog Kamari Lassiter in Houston. Elsewhere, it’s different.
“I almost got kicked out of practice for being overly aggressive,” Bullard says. “You definitely play within the rules of the game, and you want to be a good teammate. But don’t ever lose that competitor. I’m all for erring on the line. I want to be on that damn line. You’ve got to tell me to, ‘Hey Bull, chill the hell out.’ Rather than I’m not doing shit, I’m not going hard enough, and you’re like, ‘Damn, c’mon Bull.’ I’d rather my dog be aggressive than my dog be a slouch.”
This doesn’t mean coaches should bring back two-a-days, ban hydration and round up the boys for a CTE-inducing rendition of Bull in the Ring. But a killer instinct in games is only possible if players are allowed to bring that level of energy in practice.
Yanking that chain on your dog defeats the purpose. Fights nature.
Especially with players who’ve abided by a seek-and-destroy doctrine since age 5.
“Like everything in life,” Bullard explains, “people want to be able to control that. You can’t control that. And I don’t think you want to. In this profession, that’s not something you want to control. Let your player be a player. Let him be passionate. Let him be who he is. I’m pretty sure if I wasn’t the person that I am, I wouldn’t be playing for the Packers.”
Bullard offers a gentle plea: “Let me be me.”
Props to Brian Gutekunst for selecting Bullard with the 58th pick. His ’24 draft has the potential to give Green Bay postseason venom. In the same spring, he selected linebacker Edgerrin Cooper and throwback safety Evan Williams. The GM also traded two first-round picks and invested $46 million per year for Parsons, a perennial DPOY candidate who fights through the echo of the whistle. On offense, brawling guard Sean Rhyan once shared a peculiar story with us. When one D-tackle was bull-rushing him in a pad-less practice, the 321-pounder who lives by a “kill ‘em all” mindset told himself: “Fuck that I’m going to bury you.”
Rhyan buried that defender into the grass.
LaFleur was pissed. LaFleur berated him in front of the entire team.
A style of coaching that can bake into the makeup of any team, to the point of tapping the brakes at the worst moments. History isn’t on LaFleur’s side. Only four NFL head coaches have won a Super Bowl at this point or beyond with their first team. This is the evolution he needs. Encourage attack mode instead of constantly throttling down.
Bullard has spoken with new Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon and offered all unfiltered thoughts.
His dream role? Anything that keeps him on the field. Bull would love to be weaponized like the human harpoon in Houston: Jalen Pitre. From Week 8 to 16, Pitre played 100 percent of the defensive snaps. At Arrowhead, his crushing hit on Kansas City’s Rashee Rice was the game-changing play in a season-changing win. This Texans’ 2025 defense might’ve been immortalized in ’85 Bears-, ’00 Ravens-, Legion of Boom-like lore if it received average quarterback play in the postseason. It did not. Even so, the last two champs won with suffocating defenses that showed no mercy.
Philly humiliated one of three greatest quarterbacks of all-time. Patrick Mahomes didn’t cross midfield until the score was 34-0.
Seattle devoured the quarterback who lost the MVP award by one of the thinnest margins ever. Drake Maye went three and out on six possessions.
“Your defense is going to win you everything,” Bullard says. “I want the Packers to understand that. Hell, I want the whole league to understand that you build around that defense. When you’ve got so many guys that really take pride in what they doing — really want to dominate — the sky’s the limit. That’s the recipe for all 32 teams. Get you some dogs that really don’t give a fuck.”
Suggest that Bullard can be the voice who brings this attitude to Green Bay and he laughs a gregarious laugh in agreement.
The key is being himself. Anything less is “settling” — and he vows to never, ever settle.
He doesn’t want anybody on this roster masquerading as somebody they’re not.
“If you are an asshole? Be an asshole every day,” he says. “Don’t be an asshole Monday and then try to flip it on Wednesday when media comes in. Nah, I hate those. That shit grinds my gears. If you’re going to be arrogant, be arrogant every day. Be confident every day. Don’t pick and choose when this shit is acceptable. Be yourself. Be who you are. Be how you were raised. Be what you truly believe in. That’s going to get you farther than pretending.”
Football remains a violent enterprise despite the league’s foray into flag and hypocritical infomercials suggesting the sport is safe. An “asshole” or two… or three… or four is required. Bull is much obliged. Bull promises to speak up if anyone lollygags between plays. He’ll get into the grill of opposing receivers, too. Never to talk down on opponents. He prefers to build himself up.
“Like, ‘Motherfucker, you got to feel it. You got to see me! I ain’t going nowhere!’”
Bullard has a sneaking suspicion the schedule-makers will ensure Green Bay and Chicago face each other in primetime twice. Perhaps in Week 1.
Words will be exchanged.
‘Big brother’
Turn right on E Camden Street, loop onto N Wayne Street and good luck finding a parking spot. Huey Park is packed. All grass lots are full. Cars snake along both sides of N Wayne. Vehicles squeeze in wherever possible.
Hip-hop blares from the speakers.
Laughter is louder.
Clouds loiter overhead, but it never rains on this sweltering 81-degree day.
This “Family Fun Day” is everything Javon Bullard envisioned.
Milledgeville, Ga., gave him a key to the city in 2023 — and so much more — so he wanted to return the favor. Oversized F-U-N-D-A-Y letters greet locals with bundles of green, yellow and white balloons. Nobody needs to pay anything. The park’s full of food trucks, horse rides, a bouncy house and it’s all on Bullard’s dime. This is the “old-fashioned fun” he craves. He made sure this party included a police presence both at the entrance and inside the festival. There’s not an inkling violence.
Hundreds are decked out in Georgia and Packers gear. There are No. 20 and No. 22 jerseys, obviously, but also a hearty number of homemade Bullard-themed shirts. One sparkles in green glitter.
Group to group, the magnetic Bullard engages in vibrant conversation with everyone.
Black families, white families. Kids, senior citizens.
Old friendships are rekindled. New friendships, forged.
He’s not the first local to go pro. Maurice Hurt, Leroy Hill and ex-Browns running back Earnest Byner are all from Milledgeville. But nobody’s had the opportunity to inspire this town at this time quite like Bullard. Milledgeville’s crime has been on the decline the last five years. Maybe it’s no coincidence this improvement aligns with his rise. And if he can serve as a guiding light here, why not at 1265 Lombardi Avenue?
Mom takes the microphone to thank everyone for coming and promises Javon will get to everyone he possibly can for photos and autographs. Bullard — a towel draped from his pocket, a fountain drink in his right hand — bobs his head to the beat of Archie Eversole’s timeless “We Ready!” It’s the same song that had Soldier Field quaking seconds before Packers-Bears.
The Chicago rematch would be a fine place to start.
Nothing went awry at halftime. Whether the score was 21-3 or 3-21, Bullard believes the same words would’ve been spoken at halftime. Problem is, it’s not about words. Bullard cites a “feel,” a raw emotion, that was absent inside the visitor’s locker room that frigid Chicago night.
“Everybody has to feel it,” Bullard says. “Not just the players. Coaches, too. Everybody got to feel that shit. We can’t just be out there saying, ‘Keep your foot on their neck! Don’t let up.’ And then you let up. That defeats the purpose.”
When I ask if LaFleur has this energy to him, Bullard cites the “elite” coaching he received at Georgia. Kirby Smart’s pregame speeches made him want to run through the nearest wall. He likes his new coach’s style. How LaFleur makes sure his gelled hair is extra “crispy.” Still, he sees a stark difference between LaFleur and Detroit’s Dan Campbell or New England’s Mike Vrabel. Not that either one is a better coach, he cautions, but both are master motivators. Alphas.
Vrabel once said on a podcast that he’d cut off his penis to win a Super Bowl.
Some coaches flat-out refuse to be emasculated. If an opposing coach said “Fuck the Patriots!” on a Sunday, there’s a reasonable chance that poor sap would need his jaw wired shut by Monday.
We’re about to see how much fight LaFleur has in him. Ben Johnson has been trolling him since the day he was introduced as the Bears head coach. When he called out LaFleur by name, everyone assumed the two were old pals. Uh, no. A calendar year later, Johnson stomped all over Green Bay’s grave with those F-bombs inside the locker room. All for an owner, George McCaskey, who once banned profanity from airing on his team’s Hard Knocks appearance. The Bears are evolving.
Bullard hopes Johnson’s rebel yell ignites something inside of LaFleur. He admits that you never know how people will react to getting called out.
“We’re going to see,” he adds.
Either way, a killer instinct is desperately needed. Javon Bullard, in full, is best equipped to spark such a revolution.
Before any fantasies of winning a championship, the Packers must beat the Bears.
Hell no, he won’t give his adversary an inch. Bullard says the Bears were bailed out by various penalties. The snap before Caleb Williams’ fourth-and-8 sorcery, center Drew Dalman sailed a snap over his head. If not for Dalman’s false start, the game could’ve ended right then. But Bullard points his finger first at the Packers. There were drops on offense, lapses on defense. Make the same mistake twice in the NFL, Bullard adds, “and you’re gone.” Coaches can only do so much. Parsons is the best pass rusher he’s ever seen with his own eyes but Bullard refuses to use his absence as an excuse, noting Green Bay’s D mounted a 21-3 lead without him.
I point out that Chicago scored 25 points in the fourth quarter.
Bullard grimaces as if stabbed in the abdomen. He cannot fathom this number.
“That is bad! That’s bad, man. That’s bad.”
The linebacker who nearly sacked Williams on that critical fourth down is following Bull’s lead. Isaiah McDuffie isn’t sticking his head in the sand. He has rewatched this play and visualized himself — this time — completing the sack. “You’ve got to move past it, but remember it,” McDuffie says. “The next time that opportunity presents itself, seal the deal.” McDuffie is one of the longest-tenured players on the roster.
He goes back to the team’s playoff heartbreak as a No. 1 seed vs. San Francisco in 2021 and he views Bull’s personality as a missing piece.
When one of the lightest players on defense lights up a receiver, it makes him want to do the same. McDuffie agrees the Packers must lean into this rivalry.
“We didn’t finish,” McDuffie says. “We know we let them off the hook and it left a really bad taste in our mouth. Everyone in that locker room can’t wait to play them again. It’s good for the league — a Bears-Packers rivalry. We want to run the North and we know we have to beat them to do that.”
When these teams meet again, Johnson’s clip will re-loop tens of thousands of times on social. Inform Bullard that his comments may also resurface and he does not care. Again, he’ll live in reality.
Nobody can pretend as if the animosity between these two clubs does not exist.
“We love it. We embrace that. Shit, I can’t wait,” Bullard says. “Everybody says every game is the same, but it’s not. I’m keeping it 100. Every game is not the same. You might prepare the same way for every game, but the feeling? It’s going to be different. You get a different tingle in your body. When certain things happen — when we play Chicago? — the shit is there.
“The energy’s there. Your whole damn body vibrates, man.”
That vibration begins the moment players step off the team bus.
He speaks romantically about Bears fans shouting obscenities his direction, booing until they’re hoarse. Bullard wishes everyone in life could experience this adrenaline rush once in their life. (“A beautiful feeling.”) Something special is embedded deep into the DNA of this rivalry. Over dinner in ‘24, that’s what Hall of Famer LeRoy Butler tried to impart on another Packers DB. Butler educated Evan Williams on the exact moment he realized this matchup meant more. He was getting his ankles taped, in 1990, when veteran linebacker Brian Noble informed him it was Bears Week.
Butler continued to put on his cleats without much of a reaction. “No,” Noble said, “we are playing the Bears.” His point: By football law, you are supposed to hate this team with a passion.
Beat the Bears, Butler told Williams, and you’re treated like royalty.
For three decades, Green Bay has dominated the matchup. Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers are a combined 48-18 against Chicago.
Bullard is aware. He still views this as a “big brother-little brother” relationship.
“They got two little wins last year,” Bullard says. “But don’t forget who the big brother is. We’re still big brother. They got a long way to go before they can try to shit on us. But we got to show them, too. We can’t just talk that shit. We’ve got to be about it. So it’s going to be hell next year, man.
“It’s going to be hell.”
Hostility that should be welcomed, not shunned, by everyone back in Wisconsin.
There are coaches (and PR staffs) who hear language like this and call a player into the principal’s office for a tisk-tisk lecture. Then, there are coaches who cheer it on. Coaches who take these words, plaster them up on a projector screen and compel everyone on the roster to think exactly like Javon Bullard.
It’s high time the Packers morphed into the latter.
This night, anything feels possible in Milledgeville. The local legend cannot simply walk out of Legends. Bullard daps up a DJ in the corner, makes small talk with a mother of two little girls waiting for a table and — upon taking 1 ½ strides toward the front door to exit? — hears his name called in the bar area one more time. Two middle-aged women recognize him. He does a 180 and hugs both.
Eventually, we make our way past that No. 22 jersey on the wall and head into the night sky.
Walking through the parking lot, Bullard arrives at the realization that it’s only March and lets out a deep sigh. To him, this NFL offseason is too damn long. All this talk about the Bears and being the “bad guy” and the Honey Badger makes him want to strap on the pads this Sunday. Alas, he must wait six months to crash into another team.
Bull is ready.
Are the Packers?
Well done Tyler. I love this guy! Lombardi would've loved to have him on his team.
Great story. But, its only March 30... very interested to see how this team responds this season.